Investigating TriHaloMethanes with respect to humidity

The disinfection of potable water has dramatically reduced the instances of Cholera and similar ailments within a population drawing upon that water source. There is however the possibility that Natural Organic Matter (NOM) can interact with the disinfection compounds to form Disinfection By-Products (DBP). One group of DBPs are Trihalomethanes (THMs) with several compounds of the group being suspected carcinogens. Within the UK the total concentration of all THMs within drinking water must not exceed 100µg/l. At present water authorities take samples of the water supply and return them to a central laboratory for analysis. This provides an accurate test but one which can involve a long lead time in discovering a potential hazard to public health. A Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometer (FAIMS) sensor may be ideally placed to perform in situ continuous monitoring at particular sites. As part of a PhD co-sponsored by The Open University and Owlstone Nanotech Plc an investigation is ongoing to discover how sensitive a FAIMS device is with respect to THMs and humidity when sampling. Initial results and the method of data processing, which involves peak fitting to evolving spectra are presented

Quantification of ethyl acetate using FAIMS

The enjoyment of wine is based not only on its flavour but also its aroma. The presence of compounds, such as ethyl acetate, can add a desirable depth of body, richness and sweetness to a wine. However, if the levels exceed the human perception threshold (100 - 200 mg/l) an aroma similar to acetone becomes prevalent and the wine is regarded as spoilt.A study was undertaken to determine the concentration of ethyl acetate within wine using a Gas Chromatograph coupled with Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometry (FAIMS). The use of FAIMS (also known as Differential Mobility Spectrometry) as a selective detector has increasingly become prevalent within analytical science. There is now a vibrant community of researchers working with the technique and different commercial systems are readily available. Two such systems are the Tourist and Lonestar instruments available from Owlstone Ltd. The Owlstone systems are characterised by the sensor being a solid state device, which imposes constraints on operational parameters but also offers opportunities over comparable devices. FAIMS technology requires the interaction of compounds both within the ionisation and separation region. To influence the interactions in these two regions studies were completed at elevated (compared to ambient) pressures and humidity. The study of ethyl acetate within wine provided an opportunity to investigate these effects and also provided a route for optimisation of the instrument for the study. It was found, in contrast to a previously reported investigation, that increasing the pressure resulted in a greater resolution of compounds. A more complicated relationship was observed with respect to humidity, believed attributable to water being an important constituent of reactive and product ion formation. Additional effects due to the presence of co-solvents were observed and subsequently managed so as to provide increased sensitivity. The quantification of ethyl acetate within wine was accomplished considerably below the human perception threshold providing the opportunity to better manage this multifarious compound throughout manufacture and the product lifecycle

Lessons learned from the introduction of autonomous monitoring to the EUVE science operations center

The University of California at Berkeley's (UCB) Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Astrophysics (CEA), in conjunction with NASA's Ames Research Center (ARC), has implemented an autonomous monitoring system in the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) science operations center (ESOC). The implementation was driven by a need to reduce operations costs and has allowed the ESOC to move from continuous, three-shift, human-tended monitoring of the science payload to a one-shift operation in which the off shifts are monitored by an autonomous anomaly detection system. This system includes Eworks, an artificial intelligence (AI) payload telemetry monitoring package based on RTworks, and Epage, an automatic paging system to notify ESOC personnel of detected anomalies. In this age of shrinking NASA budgets, the lessons learned on the EUVE project are useful to other NASA missions looking for ways to reduce their operations budgets. The process of knowledge capture, from the payload controllers for implementation in an expert system, is directly applicable to any mission considering a transition to autonomous monitoring in their control center. The collaboration with ARC demonstrates how a project with limited programming resources can expand the breadth of its goals without incurring the high cost of hiring additional, dedicated programmers. This dispersal of expertise across NASA centers allows future missions to easily access experts for collaborative efforts of their own. Even the criterion used to choose an expert system has widespread impacts on the implementation, including the completion time and the final cost. In this paper we discuss, from inception to completion, the areas where our experiences in moving from three shifts to one shift may offer insights for other NASA missions

[Introduction] The future of childhood studies and Children & Society

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Travelling and sticky affects: : Exploring teens and sexualized cyberbullying through a Butlerian-Deleuzian- Guattarian lens

In this paper we combine the thinking of Deleuze and Guattari (1984, 1987) with Judith Butler’s (1990, 1993, 2004, 2009) work to follow the rhizomatic becomings of young people’s affective relations in a range of on- and off-line school spaces. In particular we explore how events that may be designated as sexual cyberbullying are constituted and how they are mediated by technology (such as texting or in/through social networking sites). Drawing on findings from two different studies looking at teens’ uses of and experiences with social networking sites, Arto in Denmark, and Bebo in the UK, we use this approach to think about how affects flow, are distributed, and become fixed in assemblages. We map how affects are manoeuvred and potentially disrupted by young people, suggesting that in the incidences discussed affects travel as well as stick in points of fixation. We argue that we need to grasp both affective flow and fixity in order to gain knowledge of how subjectification of the gendered/classed/racialised/sexualised body emerges. A Butlerian-Deleuzian-Guattarian frame helps us to map some of these affective complexities that shape sexualized cyberbully events; and to recognize technologically mediated lines of flight when subjectifications are at least temporarily disrupted and new terms of recognition and intelligibility staked out. Keywords

Whither Critical Masculinity Studies? Notes on Inclusive Masculinity Theory, Postfeminism, and Sexual Politics

Inclusive masculinity theory has recently been proposed as a new approach to theo- rizing contemporary masculinities. Focusing particularly on the work of the theory’s key exponent, Eric Anderson, this article offers a critical reading of inclusive masculinity theory in relation to the context of contemporary postfeminism. Building on feminist scholarship that analyzes the emergence of a distinctive postfeminist sensibility within the academy, I consider how inclusive masculinity theory both reflects and reproduces certain logics of postfeminism. My central concern is the manner in which this scho- larship deemphasizes key issues of sexual politics and promotes a discourse of optimism about men, masculinities, and social change. Against this view, I argue that critical masculinity studies must foreground the analysis of gendered power relations and posit that the interrogation of contemporary postfeminism is critical to this endeavor

Field Measurements of Terrestrial and Martian Dust Devils

Surface-based measurements of terrestrial and martian dust devils/convective vortices provided from mobile and stationary platforms are discussed. Imaging of terrestrial dust devils has quantified their rotational and vertical wind speeds, translation speeds, dimensions, dust load, and frequency of occurrence. Imaging of martian dust devils has provided translation speeds and constraints on dimensions, but only limited constraints on vertical motion within a vortex. The longer mission durations on Mars afforded by long operating robotic landers and rovers have provided statistical quantification of vortex occurrence (time-of-sol, and recently seasonal) that has until recently not been a primary outcome of more temporally limited terrestrial dust devil measurement campaigns. Terrestrial measurement campaigns have included a more extensive range of measured vortex parameters (pressure, wind, morphology, etc.) than have martian opportunities, with electric field and direct measure of dust abundance not yet obtained on Mars. No martian robotic mission has yet provided contemporaneous high frequency wind and pressure measurements. Comparison of measured terrestrial and martian dust devil characteristics suggests that martian dust devils are larger and possess faster maximum rotational wind speeds, that the absolute magnitude of the pressure deficit within a terrestrial dust devil is an order of magnitude greater than a martian dust devil, and that the time-of-day variation in vortex frequency is similar. Recent terrestrial investigations have demonstrated the presence of diagnostic dust devil signals within seismic and infrasound measurements; an upcoming Mars robotic mission will obtain similar measurement types

Utilizing image texture to detect land-cover change in Mediterranean coastal wetlands

Land-use/cover change dynamics were investigated in a Mediterranean coastal wetland. Change Vector Analysis (CVA) without and with image texture derived from the co-occurrence matrix and variogram were evaluated for detecting land-use/cover change. Three Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) scenes recorded on July 1985, 1993 and 2005 were used, minimizing change detection error caused by seasonal differences. Images were geometrically, atmospherically and radiometrically corrected. CVA without and with texture measures were implemented and assessed using reference images generated by object-based supervised classification. These outputs were used for cross-classification to determine the ‘from–to’ change used to compare between techniques. The Landsat TM image bands together with the variogram yielded the most accurate change detection results, with Kappa statistics of 0.7619 and 0.7637 for the 1985–1993 and 1993–2005 image pairs, respectively